Ah, free and foreign. Now that's what I'm talking about. And this is some tasty stuff, for people with more traditional tastes at least, even if you won't recognize most of the tunes here. Call it a cross between Choral music and A Cappella, sprinkle in jazz influence lightly. Jaimina Johnston was born in Liverpool to a Spanish mother and a British father, both with backgrounds in classical music, sometime in the 40s. This of course meant Jaimina grew up along with rock n roll, right there in the same town as the Fab Four. Jaimina was a soprano with a local choir when she decided to embrace the music of the day. Given her background, however, Jaimina couldn't help but combine the Latin and classical influences, along with jazz and blues which she'd also embraced. The style of her ostensibly pop/rock group--which even played the legendary Cavern Club--tended toward topical a cappella. In 1967, Jaimina married, moved to Puerto Rico with her husband, and still played her brand of music in the clubs. Always, there was her very distinctive soprano voice floating lightly as a feather above the surrounding voices. Not much was heard from Jaimina for a very long while. Her husband died in 1989 and she, ultimately, returned to Liverpool. In 2004, Jaimina was accused of tax evasion and sentenced to 3 years in prison. After serving a year and a half, Jaimina left prison only to find herself requiring surgery on her vocal chords. So it is only in 2007 that the first recording from Jaimina Johnston and her group is released. "So Many Songs" was well received, as was the follow-up, "So Little Time". So that's a whole lot more about Jaimina Johnston than you probably cared to know, but I found it fascinating. "Navidades Con Jaimina" (Christmas with Jaimina) is one of the many, many free downloads available through jamendo. There's so many, that I really haven't had the time to go through them to separate the good from bad. But just type "Christmas" in their search engine and I'll see you next November and you can tell me all about it. In the meantime, sample this album and, if you like it, click on the download button. They'll ask for a donation and your email address, but neither is required. Just leave those spaces blank and keep scrolling until the new download button appears. If you find this is something you like, you should probably also check out the album "Pray", a collection of spiritual songs from Jaimina.

The FREE List

Here we hope to direct you to some of the Christmas music on the web that can be yours absolutely free. We will not direct you to mp3 or sharity sites, here, but only to artist sites, label sites, and other authorized and unquestionably legal locations.